Carnegie Mellon Study Reveals Negative Potential of Heavy
Internet Use on Emotional Well Being

The Internet has the potential to make us socially isolated,
lonely and depressed, according to the unexpected results of a study of
home computer users by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University.
The findings are gathered from HomeNet, the first study to look
specifically at the impact that the Internet is having over time on the
social involvement and psychological well being of average Americans.

Published this month in The American Psychologist, a publication of the
American Psychological Association, the findings provide a consistent
picture of the downside of using the Internet extensively as a source of
information or setting for friendship and or social support.
"We were surprised to find that what is a social technology has such
anti-social consequences," says Robert Kraut, a professor of social
psychology and human computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon who is the
lead author of the article for The American Psychologist.

Even though people in the study heavily used electronic mail and other
communication services on the Internet, the research found that spending
time on the Internet was associated with later declines in talking among
family members, reductions in the number of friends and acquaintances
they kept up with, and increases in depression and loneliness.
Because the research studied the same people over time, it could rule
out the possibility that people who are initially socially isolated,
lonely and depressed were drawn to the Internet. Rather, according to
Kraut, using the Internet seems to cause isolation, loneliness and
depression.

"Our results have clear implications for further research on personal
Internet use. As we understand the reasons for the declines in social
involvement, there will be implications for social policies and for the
design of Internet technology," he adds.

Various scientific and marketing reports say that more than 50 million
Americans are using the Internet, a number that is rapidly
growing. Given widespread use and with more growth expected, Kraut says
the Internet could change the lives of Americans as much as the
telephone did in the early 20th century or as television did in the
1950s and 1960s. "We want to help make these changes good ones," he says.

HomeNet studied 169 personal computer users in Pittsburgh, whose
communications on the Internet were monitored during their first years
online. The home computer users are families with a wide range of
demographic backgrounds whose common bond was a high school age student
or membership in a community development group. The families used
electronic mail, the World Wide Web and computer games, among other
normal home computing uses. Time spent online varied a great deal among
the subjects.

Members of the research team are part of Carnegie Mellon's
Human-Computer Interaction Institute and include Kraut and Sara Kiesler,
a professor of social and decision sciences; Tridas Mukophadhyay, a
professor at Carnegie Mellon's graduate business school; William
Scherlis, a senior research scientist and director of the Information
Technology Center in the School of Computer Science; Vicki Lundmark, a
post-doctoral fellow, and Michael Patterson, a graduate student in
Social and Decision Sciences.

"We hope our findings help make things change on the Internet. We are
not talking about Internet addicts, just regular people," Kraut
says. "These are not just results that occur in the extremes. And these
are the same people who, when asked, describe the Internet as a positive
thing."

The technology that has allowed people to keep in touch with distant
family members and friends, to find information quickly and to develop
friendships with people around the world apparently is also replacing
vital, everyday human communication.
"Many users may be substituting WWW browsing and chat rooms for their
stronger, real-life relationships," Kiesler says. "You don't have to
deal with unpleasantness, because if you don't like somebody's behavior,
you can just log off. In real life, relationships aren't always
easy. Yet dealing with some of those hard parts is good for us. It helps
us keep connected with people."

Greater use of the Internet was associated with statistically
significant declines in the social involvement that Kiesler refers
to. Decreases in social involvement were indicated by a drop-off in
communication within a participant's families, the size of a person's
social networks and reports by participants of increases in loneliness
and depression, psychological states associated with reduced social
involvement.

In all, the study uses data on 169 people in 73 families. A little over
half the subjects are female users, a quarter of them belong to
minorities. The subject pool also represents a fairly wide income range.
Of the different demographic groups, teenagers seem the most vulnerable
to potential negative effects. What's more, teenagers used the Internet
for more hours than did adults.

Mukhopadhyay offers the following advice to parents: "The basic
objective is to maintain open communication and to stay vigilant. As
far as the computer and Internet go, you can put the machine in a public
place - in the living room or kitchen rather than the basement or the
kid's room. This will automatically ensure that your teen does not use
the Internet too much."

Carnegie Mellon's scientists believe the findings will spark a debate,
not only for Internet users and researchers, but also for government
agencies looking at growth of the Internet and for companies that write
Internet software.

Scherlis notes, "We are not branding the Internet as either socially
good or bad. The Internet is a complex and multi-faceted social
phenomenon and it is evolving rapidly. It was created more than 20 years
ago for sharing technical information among scientists. It's really
only recently that the Internet has become a public resource, and the
average citizen who uses the 'Net has largely inherited this set of
services. Our results show that there may be real benefits from greater
research and development to the broad area of user level communication
and information services. Both industry and government can foster this
growth through research into new services, experimentation, evaluation
and standards development."

The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the
Markle Foundation, and a consortium of computer companies (Apple
Computer, Hewlett Packard, Intel Panasonic), software companies (Lotus
Development Corporation, Interval Research), and communications
companies (AT&T Research, US Postal Service, Bell Atlantic, Bellcore, US
West Advanced Technologies, NTT, CNET) and others (NPD).